


Foreword to the Second Edition of The Lady in Grey

by Boton



Category: Mr. Holmes - Fandom, Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Gen, Inspired by the film, Retirement!lock, Sussex, The Lady in Grey
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-21
Updated: 2015-09-21
Packaged: 2018-04-22 19:09:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 857
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4846943
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Boton/pseuds/Boton
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In 1947, Sherlock Holmes was asked to write a foreword to John H. Watson's final tale, "The Lady in Grey." This is the result.</p><p>Inspired by the movie <i>Mr. Holmes</i>.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Foreword to the Second Edition of The Lady in Grey

**Author's Note:**

> In the movie "Mr. Holmes," we learn that Watson came to tend to Holmes in his depression following the case that would become the fictitious tale "The Lady in Grey." Holmes also admits that he and Watson became estranged after that. I wondered what could have caused the estrangement, and this is the result.
> 
> Disclaimer: Sherlock Holmes and his universe are the creation of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. _Mr. Holmes_ was produced by AI Film, BBC Films, FilmNation Entertainment, Archer Gray Productions, and See-Saw Films. It was based on _A Slight Trick of the Mind_ by Mitch Cullin. I am not profiting from the intellectual property of any of these creators or any other creators not named.

**Foreword to _The Lady in Grey_**

You hold in your hand the second edition of the final literary effort of my dear friend John H. Watson. (In the interest of accuracy, I should point out that the “H” stands for “Hamish,” a name he detested and hid throughout his life.) To have been asked to pen a foreword is a task that I do not relish.

Watson’s books were never bastions of accuracy; far from it! He romanticized the work we did together, neglecting to examine the cold, orderly logic with which we approached the facts of the cases in favor of creating a fiction of adventure and mystery. In truth, there are no mysteries in life; one either chooses to see the facts in front of him, or he turns his eye away to see only what he wishes. In Watson’s case, that was always true, particularly when it came to me.

Watson learned of the case that he has called “The Lady in Grey” shortly after it happened. I had solved the case, but, it pains me to admit, I quickly learned that I had failed the woman. I could not understand how shining the light of truth on the facts of the case should lead to such heartache, and it threw me into one of the black moods that had blotted the copybook of my life. Of course, Watson left his wife and came to tend to me.

It was as it had always been every time one of these moods struck, as they did with increasing frequency as I grew older. Watson tended to my every need. He fed me when I would not care for myself: boiled eggs, rice, and fruit found their way from his very hands into my mouth, ensuring that my body would continue when my mind could not.

He bathed me as if I were a child, dipping his elbow into the bath water to check its temperature and bidding me sit and duck my head as he performed my ablutions. I remember how old his hands looked as they stroked the cloth over my skin, hands that could handle both a gun and a scalpel with equal facility.

He even spent his nights on the floor of my bedroom, unwilling to leave me untended for even a moment. He knew that these moods made the chemicals in my stock into sirens, singing a song that promised final relief from the pain that my mind inflicted on me. Had Watson not been with me, he knew I would break as surely as the glass harmonica that figures so prominently in the purple prose he has laid down between these covers.

And, when the black had lightened to grey, he listened to me tell the tale of my failure and the inexplicable circumstances under which logic failed to solve the case put before me. He scribbled at his pages, penning this very story, and, when I was better, he gathered his manuscript, closed his desk, and rose to his feet.

“Holmes, I cannot do this again,” he said with resolve. 

I was hopeful that he had given up writing his romances, but he shook his head.

“I cannot pull you back from the brink again,” he explained. “For most of my life, I have existed in your orbit. I have had two wives who have known that they stood second to you and that I would leave them at your call. I have watched you breathe your last time and again and put you back together to live another day. But I cannot do it again. I’m not strong enough to watch you die once more, because one day it will be real, and I will not be able to do anything to save you.”

With that, he left our – my – rooms, and he went out to publish this piece of fiction you hold in your hands. I later retired to Sussex, and I eventually learned to appreciate the irony that I had adopted the life of a hermit while spending my days with that most social of creatures, _apis mellifera_.

John Watson died some years later, preceded by Mrs. Hudson and Lestrade, and followed by my brother Mycroft. John’s stories are now films that are more floridly inaccurate than the original text.

I am now approaching the end of my own journey, and, recently, I have discovered that facts and logic are meaningless without the truth of the human heart. John knew that from the beginning. What I have dismissed as inaccurate recountings of real events, John recast into stories that gave the readers joy without causing the inspirations pain. As he did with all people, he saw the truth of me and our work hidden below the distractions of fact. John was, in all things, a healer; he healed the body, he healed the mind, and, with his stories, he healed the spirit.

I hope you enjoy _The Lady in Grey._ It is the most inaccurate and overly-romanticized piece of fiction to ever make its way to print.

It’s also true. Every word.

Sherlock Holmes  
Sussex  
1947


End file.
